Comments on FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Did McCain's Campaign Just Confirm Andrea Mitchell...

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2009-03-12T00:11:00.001-04:00

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2009-03-12T00:11:00.000-04:00

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2009-02-16T23:09:00.000-05:00

Please explain how "imposing" one's religious view...

2008-08-18T18:27:00.000-04:00

Please explain how "imposing" one's religious views is any more dangerous than "imposing" one's political views? I find Marx, Mao, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler far more dangerous ideas than Jesus.

I'm not an advocate of CR theocracy

Don't you love the so-called "Christians" and their lying? Glenn in Colorado (Springs, I'm sure) tells us that religion and politics are the same, and then turns right around and says he's not in favor of theocracy.

Hey Glenn, are you a natural liar or did they teach you that at Ted Haggard's megachurch?

If there was any doubt that this whole thing was a...

2008-08-18T18:24:00.000-04:00

If there was any doubt that this whole thing was a setup by the wingnut preacher Rick Warren, this article ought to put any doubts to rest.

Warren is a typical Republican preacher. He tilted the debate toward McCain and then lied about it. Imagine that!

This site has lost a lot of credibility in my book...

2008-08-18T18:02:00.000-04:00

This site has lost a lot of credibility in my book for suggesting this without hard evidence. It's the equivalent of sites saying Obama is a Muslim without hard evidence.

But, I have a solution to all your worries that McCain did cheat and is looking unjustly good right now. How about more joint appearances between McCain and Obama? If Obama really would be so dominant, as so many of his supporters believe, then what do you have to lose? You can't make the argument anymore that this is a lose / no gain situation because Obama is so far ahead.

Until you prove me otherwise, I will continue to believe it is because Obama can't perform (read, his philosophies just don't work) when under scrutiny from the other side of the aisle. McCain wasn't answering questions fast because he was unfairly prepared... cmon... Do you think he didn't know the life question was coming and already knew the answer he would give, the same one he would have given for the last 3 decades at least was at the moment of conception? And we know Obama's response to that same question.

Filistro,Please explain how "imposing" one's relig...

2008-08-18T15:00:00.000-04:00

Filistro,

Please explain how "imposing" one's religious views is any more dangerous than "imposing" one's political views? I find Marx, Mao, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler far more dangerous ideas than Jesus.

I'm not an advocate of CR theocracy, I'm a libertarian-conservative. My point was narrow and directed to OTF, read the original post. You people don't understand that your too easy cliched assertions about the illegitimacy of your opponent's thoughts is just as totalitarian as those who would seek to impose their thoughts on you by the power of the state. You want to use the power of the state to declare their thoughts illegitimate in politics. You may find their views on gays ugly, but that is no more valid than how they feel about your views on say religious freedom.

The Left imposes lots of its politics into "science" and education that many find offensive and wrong. The scary people on the Left are those using a separation of church and state argument morphed into a separation of the public square from religious thought.

It is you who appear to me to be unable to grasp concepts.

As much as I dislike the idea of censorship, I thi...

2008-08-18T14:53:00.000-04:00

As much as I dislike the idea of censorship, I think comments that attack other posters personally, and consistently use foul language should be monitored.

Mule Rider, you should be ashamed of yourself. Don't you have something CONSTRUCTIVE to do?

J. Young (my grad school roommate was J. Young... ...

2008-08-18T14:31:00.000-04:00

J. Young (my grad school roommate was J. Young... I hope you're not him),
I believe you're having some difficulty parsing what Nate's saying.

"Whether McCain actually used any of those devices, we have no idea. But he absolutely had the ability to use them, which is all that Mitchell had reported."

There's no speculation or innuendo. Mitchell said he could've gotten the questions and the McCain camp verified that. I believe Nate is taking a much stronger stance against the ridiculousness of McCain's response. He's all for (in my observation) MORE responsibility and accountability within the media... not less. Clearly, there's some insight as to why he's an Obama supporter there and why in his conquest to see more truth hit the airwaves, it seems like he's being partisan. The Obama camp simply doesn't lie as much as the McCain camp does.

It's funny that your analogy doesn't even contain the truth about the steroid situation. Canseco said he introduced A-Rod to a known steroid seller and had conversations about it. He has no first-hand knowledge of A-Rod acquiring or using steroids. Mitchell basically said that McCain got introduced to the steroid dealer and the McCain camp admitted as much. The implication of cheating... well... that's just one fairly obvious conclusion to draw from the evidence.

Do you believe McCain would tell a little white lie about listening to the radio on the way to the church in order to help himself become President (and the dangerous terrorist-appeasing Obama out of office more importantly)? That's really a stretch?

The "story" is not that McCain got a little extra ...

2008-08-18T14:27:00.000-04:00

The "story" is not that McCain got a little extra prep and that Obama didn't. The "story" is that McCain didn't follow the rules allowing him the opportunity to cheat but expects everyone to cut him some slack because he was a POW however many decades ago or because he's old and senile (as you suggest) or for whatever reason. But the simple fact remains that McCain had the OPPORTUNITY to cheat. Doesn't mean he did, but it doesn't mean he didn't and so it is a fair question to ask if he did.

I agree. Its sort of like shuffling the cards before you deal.

Warren: We've decided the dealer needs to shuffle.

McCain: I don't need to shuffle. I'm a POW. I'd never cheat.

Warren: I know you wouldn't cheat, but shuffle them anyway.

McCain: No shuffle

Look. I'm not sure whether McCain heard the questions or not. I suspect he didn't. But he did know the rules. He did know he was supposed to get there an hour early. He didn't follow the rules and now he is in the position of having to look like he might be cheating.

Honestly, I have no idea why McCain was late. It makes zero sense. His campaign had to know he would be accused of cheating if he was supposed to be in the cone but wasn't. Also, what was McCain doing that was so important.

This was clearly the biggest event in awhile. When was the last time McCain was on all 3 cable networks simultaneously for more than a couple minutes? I think it was several months ago with the green screen. Its not like this was just another townhall with 1000 people.

McCain would risk embarrassingly missing the entire thing if he got stuck in traffic. He'd risk being called a cheater.

Frankly, I'm not sure that McCain cheated and I think we'll never know. But most people understand that the shuffling of the deck is in there for a reason and that if you don't shuffle, you look like a cheater even if you aren't. It was a bad mistake in McCain's judgement to be late.

Oh and you Republicans that say this isn't an issue:

Bulls__t!!

Say with a straight face that you wouldn't be making a huge deal of it if Obama blatantly broke a rule designed to stop cheating.

This from the McCain camp:"The insinuation from th...

2008-08-18T14:23:00.000-04:00

This from the McCain camp:

"The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous," Ms. Wallace said.

Love that. How is being a former POW relevant to whether he cheated?

Of course, what she didn't say was:

"The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former adulterer, cheated is outrageous."

And while his adultery was long ago, his years as a POW were even longer ago.

What I find most interesing about this post is tha...

2008-08-18T14:14:00.000-04:00

What I find most interesing about this post is that, at Baseball Prospectus, Nate has a reputation for using hard evidence to make his points. This is nothing but speculation and innuendo. McCain wasn't there: fine. That, in and of itself, doesn't mean he cheated any more than Jose Canseco's word means that Alex Rodriguez used steroids. The argument against Mitchell was one of a journalist repeating party spin "uncritically", which is more than fair, if not necessarily savvy.

The McCain denial is so particular that it tends t...

2008-08-18T13:43:00.000-04:00

The McCain denial is so particular that it tends to make me feel that definitely had somebody watching or listening and writing down the questions.

It is easy enough to justify this kind of step from the standpoint of a campaign advisor. They really are far more interested in winning the presidency than 'playing fair'.

Should we talk about George Will briefing Reagan back in 1980?

filistro says: "I just got here... is the Mule beh...

2008-08-18T13:42:00.000-04:00

filistro says: "I just got here... is the Mule behaving himself? Because I'll be happy to take him out back and beat on him a bit if necessary."

LOL! He is not behaving himself but I think it is unnecessary to beat up on him, he's doing a fine job of beating himself up.

Nate, I have one small complaint with your descrip...

2008-08-18T13:19:00.000-04:00

Nate, I have one small complaint with your description of Mitchell's statement:

"There are two specific claims here -- neither of which, by the way, were Mitchell's, but instead reported as the speculations of the Obama campaign."

Actually, they were reported as speculations about the Obama campaign, not speculations of the Obama campaign. She says "The Obama people must feel...," so unless she elsewhere claims inside knowledge, this is Mitchell's speculation of what the Obama campaign is thinking. That may have been what you intended, but it's not what you're saying.

I emphasize this only because the McCain campaign (as always) is trying to pretend that criticism from anyone is an official Obama campaign statement, and those falsehoods shouldn't be given any support.

One (hopefully) last thing:Read the words of Warre...

2008-08-18T13:18:00.000-04:00

One (hopefully) last thing:

Read the words of Warren during an interview with Rick Sanchez:

Actually, Rick, I think what we saw last night was two personalities exactly playing according to form. I see Barack Obama as kind of the thoughtful consensus builder. I see John McCain as the happy, straight forward warrior. And they both answered exactly according to casting. Just the way they work. One of them tends to get right to the point. Barack is more nuanced. He's more -- he thinks things through.

HE THINKS THINGS THROUGH.

Heck of an endorsement, I'd say!

Glenn-in-Colorado,You must be one of them. Anti-Ch...

2008-08-18T13:15:00.000-04:00

Glenn-in-Colorado,

You must be one of them. Anti-Christain hardly, went to Catholic school all my life. But, I went to schools that seperated theology from science. Theology is taught in theology class and science is taught in science class. The religious right want their theology of intelligent design or creationism taught as science, along with evolution. That's theology not science. They want public funding for programs, but don't want to be bound by anti-discrimination against gays or other groups that aren't up their moral fiber in their opinion. They want to place prayer in school. There is a clear and definite seperation of church and state and they want to blur it to impose their views. They make up false terms for medical procedures that have no scientific validity.They seek a movement toward theocracy by slowly imposing their religious views as law.

Filistro said, "We clearly have our tinfoil hats t...

2008-08-18T13:14:00.000-04:00

Filistro said, "We clearly have our tinfoil hats tuned to the same wavelength. And maybe... just maybe... today's 3 point Obamabump in the Gallup tracker shows we're not alone."

Bah... Wake me for the conventions.

Rxxx... I went back and read your post, which seem...

2008-08-18T13:12:00.000-04:00

Rxxx... I went back and read your post, which seems pretty eloquent to me :-)

We clearly have our tinfoil hats tuned to the same wavelength. And maybe... just maybe... today's 3 point Obamabump in the Gallup tracker shows we're not alone.

(Chortling with glee also..)

Glenn-in-COYou're wrong. What's "dangerous" is peo...

2008-08-18T13:05:00.000-04:00

Glenn-in-CO

You're wrong.

What's "dangerous" is people who attempt to impose their religious views on others through legislation.

And what's really frightening is that you seem unable to distinguish between political and religious views.

RealDCC,What you point out is amazing that McCain ...

2008-08-18T13:00:00.000-04:00

RealDCC,

What you point out is amazing that McCain got away with these answers and people think he did great.

His solution to education. I'll "get them another line of work." Obama gave a reasoned answer on the other hand. McCain neglects the fact, if you read his eductaion plan or lack thereof that certification standards are horrible b/c people don't want to be teachers for many reasons, one is pay. The best and the brightest don't go into primary education. A graduating engineer with a 4yr degree makes average starting salary of $57,000, a starting teacher low $30'sin a good paying area most start under 30K. You think merit pay might be more helpful to attract and keep good teachers then getting rid of the decresing number of people that want to teach. Ofcourse the republicon plan is vouchers to go to private schools. Ofcourse there aren't enough of them and btw most pay a heck of lot better and have much higher qualifications to be on staff. My alma mater you had to have atleast a Masters to be on staff. We have teachers in public schools that don't even have degrees in their discipline that they teach. I know this b/c I know school administrators. They are hunting to find people to fill teaching positions.

OTF states, "Obama's goal was hardly to win these ...

2008-08-18T12:57:00.000-04:00

OTF states, "Obama's goal was hardly to win these self righteous but actaul the biggest bigots trying to impose their theocratic views in to government despite a seperation of church and state. "

OTF, this anti-Christian bigotry and borderline totalitarianism from Obama people is the type of rhetoric which will drive the Right to the polls.

Christianity is not a thought crime ... yet.

Nor is the expression through democratic means of opinions which derive from religious belief any less legitimate than your opinions derived from your Marxist textbooks, drug induced musings or MTV.

The dangeous people out there isn't Rick Warren it is you.

Filistro, I agree and was saying the same thing, j...

2008-08-18T12:53:00.000-04:00

Filistro, I agree and was saying the same thing, just not as eloquently... ;-)

Anyway, we are all wrong when we say only political junkies were watching this. Although I do not have any data, I am willing to bet that a large number of Christians outside of the Saddleback church tuned in. It was given wall to wall cable news coverage.

Warren is extremely popular (25 million books sold) so I believe this event was high on the must see TV scale for many Christians.

That there is now some controversy swirling around it makes me as an Obama supporter chortle with glee.

Politics is such a strange game, isn't it? We had ...

2008-08-18T12:45:00.000-04:00

Politics is such a strange game, isn't it?

We had this Saddleback thing and nobody watched but us junkies, because they were all watching Phelps swim. But a fragile little impression began to take root in the ether that McCain did surprisingly well.

Today I did a quick gallop around the bloggy news sites, and that impression has already been supplanted by a much louder meme that "McCain cheated!"

Policits is the only game where your victories turn almost instantly into defeats, and your biggest strengths become your most dangerous weaknesses.

(There's something really deep and existential in that truth, but I'd need a few drinks in order to pursue it, and it's too early in the day :-)

I just got here... is the Mule behaving himself?Be...

2008-08-18T12:37:00.000-04:00

I just got here... is the Mule behaving himself?

Because I'll be happy to take him out back and beat on him a bit if necessary.

Just say the word, and I'm on it ;-)